Models at (left to right) Tim Hamilton, Richard Chai, and William Rast were sent down the runway in long layering pieces shown beneath shorter jackets. One word to the wise (or perhaps the brave): Just as you should leave your jacket's bottom buttons open, same goes for your thigh-length cardigan's.

"I give you my love more precious than money." Walt Whitman's words, intoned at the opening of Michael Bastian's presentation, were a reminder that here we've got one designer who operates outside the box. Never mind the box; he gave us his love woven heart-shaped into the palm of a fingerless cashmere mitt. Bastian is a puzzle. He designs sportswear that is in the classic all-American vein, but he weights it with a strange, deeply personal yearning. For love? Well, that kind of makes sense, given this season's road trip: classic Kerouac infused with the ambiguities of the movie My Own Private Idaho.And if it isn't love, it's nostalgia that fuels Bastian's vision. He was talking about the hold that early nineties grunge had over him. It was all over the clothes: layer upon layer of stuff that you could imagine a creative indigent extracting from his local Salvation Army—a denim vest topping a plissé-front shirt, a pinstripe suit over a sweater with a cheesy raccoon motif. There were literally hundreds of elements that composed the overall mood of the presentation (which made it a much more accurate mirror of Bastian's collection than last season's skimpy show). But let the designer speak for himself: "Exit 26: Olive plaid Chesterfield top coat; Olympic blue fleece full-zip sweater with thumb holes; navy/white tattersall check button-down shirt; Olympic blue wide-wale corduroy pants; natural raccoon scarf; super narrow leather d-ring belt; gray corduroy trucker cap with wing patch." In the face of such a comprehensive reconstruction of a private vision, judgment is practically powerless. "Guys have to connect emotionally to buy stuff," Bastian said after the show. And if that suggested that he believed he was making such a connection, his instincts were right on the nose.

Justin Timberlake always dreamed of the perfect denim, but he says he needed Johan and Marcella Lindeberg to make the dream come true. "Together, we're an emerging rock band," he said in the showroom the day after the third William Rast collection was launched in New York. It was all about denim—and denim's best friend, black leather, fringed and studded in classic biker style. There was a fashion element in a leather jacket that was extended, almost safari-style, and acid wash looked new-ish again, at least to Rast's young fit model, who'd not seen it before. The Lindebergs' sensibility is fundamentally all about goth leanness, which they managed to combine with JT's Tennessee boy-ness in the layering: an elongated tank under a long flannel shirt with a tailored jacket on top. But they should honestly take the collection in the direction that JT, newly anointed one of America's most stylish men by GQ, seems most drawn to. Elvis meets Sinatra, biker culture mixed with Rat Pack. An evening jacket in a sheeny lacquered herringbone hinted at the kind of alluring oddities such a union would produce.-[[Tim Blanks]]

"Diesel Black Gold Goes Kind Of Blue," said the liner notes, and the preshow soundtrack sounded a little like Miles Davis' band tuning up. Then, quotes from Casablanca ("of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…") and The Shining ("you're the best damn bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Oregon!") were added to the mix. If the point of that curious combo was to make the audience yearn for a drink, well, then, mission accomplished. And the clothes? Diesel knows how to destroy a garment, and Renzo Rosso's washing and dyeing facilities worked overtime on the Black Gold Fall offering. Despite the occasional exception—an elongated, beaded black waistcoat over an even longer double-breasted black cardigan, for instance—the through line was worked-over workwear, fruitful territory for a brand that, at its core, is about jeans. So there were side-striped conductor's pants worn with suspenders and thirties-era work shirts with oversized buttons that were worn, weathered, and stained. And an oil- and rust-stained union suit looked like it actually came from a union shop. On a more retro tip, bowler hats topped many of the looks, and boots were festooned with white spats. But the Last Minute Orchestra was on hand to keep things from getting too mired in the past, with jazzed-up versions of songs like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Those (along with the leather pants) reminded us where Diesel's heart really is.-[[ Josh Peskowitz]]

About Me

“"Style" is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma. Fashion is something that comes after style.”
“Style is primarily a matter of instinct.”
“Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.”
“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.”